“You don’t cry when someone dies,” Elsie Czerkovich told the Baltimore Sun in April 1974. “You rejoice because he is going to heaven to live with the Lord.”
It was the day after Easter, and Czerkovich was gathering with other worshipers from the congregation of the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church for a picnic. Women sold raffle tickets. Children played baseball. Families waited for the priest to bless the dead.
Czerkovich sat at the picnic with her 80-year-old father, Sedor Romanuk. She explained to the journalist, J.S. Bainbridge, Jr., that her father had come to Baltimore intending to make money to bring back to Russia. Instead, he had stayed.
Elsie Romanuk married Paul Czerkovich sometime between 1947 and 1950. Paul’s own parents’ countries of origin on censuses alternate between Russia, Ukraine, and Austria, demonstrating how meaningless borders can be.
Paul Czerkovich identified firmly as Russian, as evidenced by his heavy involvement in the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church, as well as his appearances in local newspapers commenting on matters of Russian culture – particularly food. In a 2000 article about the Russian Festival at Holy Trinity church, Paul said that his father had been an officer in the Russian Imperial Army, and that Paul and Elsie had both attended Holy Trinity since they were children.